Prices of government bonds in the U.S., Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan fell broadly on Monday as fears over a potential breakup of the eurozone diminished following the first round of the French presidential race.
French presidential front-runner Emmanuel Macron is going hunting for blue-collar votes, planning to meet with workers from a home appliance factory that is the latest hot-button symbol of the loss of French jobs to plants overseas.
Le Pen and Macron bested nine other candidates to advance past the first round of voting on Sunday.
European Union officials in Brussels, in a break with protocol, were quick to congratulate Mr Macron.
Macron came in first place in Sunday's vote, with Marine Le Pen in a close second.
Sylvain Crepon, an FN specialist at Tours university, says Le Pen can not bridge the gap with Macron this time, but pressing those themes is vital for the party's future and its role in the reorganising of a political landscape shaken by a campaign which has seen both the major left-wing and right-wing parties tumble.
"RT has not received an official reason for its exclusion from the Macron presidential campaign headquarters", it said in a statement.
Banks and industrial companies led the way higher in US markets Monday.
The defeated far-left candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, pointedly refused to back Macron, and Le Pen's National Front is hoping to do the once unthinkable and peel away voters historically opposed to a party long tainted by racism and anti-Semitism.
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Far-right presidential contender Marine Le Pen has rebranded herself with a new slogan - "Choose France" - before the May 7 runoff balloting to embrace a wider swath of voters and boost her chances for victory.
Mr Macron was economy minister in the outgoing Socialist administration, but he was appointed to the role and has never been elected to any position, making him the insider's outsider.
A one-on-one against an ex-banker backed by politicians of all stripes wanting to form a dam against the FN gives Le Pen the flawless opportunity to boost her anti-establishment appeal, even if pollsters say that is not enough for her to win.
Politicians on the moderate left and right, including the Socialist and Republicans party losers in Sunday's first-round vote, manoeuvred to block Ms Le Pen's path to power in the May 7 run-off. "They can be in agreement with us", said Front National vice president Steeve Brios.
But Macron's party spokesman, Benjamin Griveaux, said the far-right candidate is hardly a vector of change. "The election hasn't been won and we need to bring people together to win", Richard Ferrand, secretary general of Macron's En Marche (On the Move) movement, acknowledged on BFM television Monday. The answer is yes.
Opinion polls put Macron ahead by over 20 points, a lead so large that a repeat of the Brexit surprise seemed highly unlikely.
In 2015, she even expelled her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the party in 1972, after he made a statement denying the Holocaust.
Despite his insurgent campaign, Mr Macron is considered more a continuity candidate than a radical. The New York Times, for example, called it "a full-throated rebuke of the mainstream parties" and The Economist warned that the "first-round result could also presage the break-up of the French party system".
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